Monday, December 22, 2014

Regaining My Voice

Can I just tell you that this little act of opening up my Blogger account felt like the strangest yet most familiar thing I have done in a long time? I almost don't even know where to begin. I found myself trying to remember my Blogger password and moderating some 40 comments from the last time I had logged on. My heart has been drawing me back to this little space on the internet. There were two moments in the past two days that confirmed to me over and over again that I needed to be back here. Back to my blog. Back to Finding Home. Though Finding Home will soon change...but that's another story for another day. I hesitated so long in restarting my blog. This draw to come back here has been pulling at me for longer than I can even care to recount. I've literally composed a hundred blog posts in my mind but I never found the fortitude to actually put fingers to keyboard to release what was swirling in my mind and heart. Somewhere along the way, I lost my voice. I lost my reason for writing and I felt as though I had little, if anything, to share. I got sucked into the world of comparison and we all know that comparison is the thief of joy. It took all life from my blog and I felt I no longer had anything of value to share. And in the name of vulnerability, that is still how I feel deep inside. Fear could totally cripple me and keep me from sharing bits of my heart but I'm deciding to say NO to fear and dive back in.You see, when I started my blog over seven years ago, blogging wasn't really a "thing". I created a blog to keep in touch with my family in Pennsylvania after moving to Northern Ontario, Canada. Blogging at the time was pre-Pinterest, pre-fancy printables and pre-social media. My blog started even before some of the giant bloggers who now have books to their credit. To gain "followers" required building real relationships with other bloggers and readers. It required investing in their lives just as much as they invested in mine. We didn't just hop on Pinterest to search for a glossy photoed post to fulfill our needs. No. You went through your blog feed each day, read your friends new posts, commented, saved ideas the old fashioned way and grew organically through relationships and quality content. And that's where I fell apart. The relationships were great. I still have many blogging friends who have turned into true friends that I communicate with regularly. But I lost that whole content part. What did I have to say? How can I blog about Finding Home when I didn't have a home? We'd been in a whole home renovation for the past four years. How do I blog about organizing and decor and recipes and all of those things that I love when I was doing none of it? My blog became something I tucked aside while I started learning life as a new mom...and now a mom of two. I recently began thinking about my blogging voice again. Why do I want to blog? What do I have to say? And why? The why is what's pushing me. They say your WHY will make you cry. And cry it does. You see, my biggest fear in life is being taken away from my babies before I've had a chance to pour life lessons into them. If I were to die tomorrow, what would they have from me? Where would my voice be? Someone will surely teach them the ways of life but where will my voice be in that? I want them to know how their momma lived and loved life. I want them to be able to pull up this blog and read how to prepare for the holidays or what the best technique was for doing their laundry. I want them to see bits of their life through my eyes and I want to be able to leave a tangible legacy that they can one day look back upon for reference when they are unsure how to do life. And that motivation is so very strong. Life is so very fragile and I want to cram as many life lessons and heart prints into this space that I can. So here we go. It's about to get real up in here, people! And I am SO excited about it! Welcome Back!

P.S. Please bear with me as I work on updating the look of my blog. I've always done the formatting and such myself and I fear it's horribly outdated at this point. I will be primping up this space soon!

3 comments:

Oh momma! And to think this is where I met you years ago... and funny, I haven't logged onto blogger in forever, and I do tonight, and you are front and center!

I'm so excited for your journey to begin again! And have clicked on your "finding home" so many times looking for an update. I love your reasoning behind coming back, and welcome you with open arms. Maybe I can get my butt in gear and join you, eh??

From one PA girl to another... you know we should be real life bff's, but internet friends works too!

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Welcome to my neck of the bloggin' woods! My name is Mandi and I'm so glad you decided to come by today. I'm just a gal from Pennsylvania who married my Canadian husband seven years ago. We purchased a fixer-upper house and we're renovating, redecorating, restructuring and recreating. I'm a momma of two and a Director with the Scentsy Family. So sit back and stay awhile as we turn our hearts towards home.